From the Beginning. Tracy Wolff
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want you to take care of me.”
“Yeah, well, have you looked in a mirror lately? Because you may not want to be taken care of, but you definitely need to be. And, no offense, but it looks like I’m the only candidate for the job.”
She whirled on him. “Why are you here? Why are you doing this to me? Can’t you see that I don’t want anything to do with you?”
He could see it—and it was killing him. “Look, I’m not suggesting we jump into bed together—”
“Glad to hear it, because that part of our lives is long over.”
He ignored her, and the pinprick of hurt her words caused. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t been expecting them, after all. “I just want to make sure you’re all right.”
“Why?”
“Excuse me?”
“Why do you suddenly feel responsible for me?” she demanded, her silver eyes steady on his. “You never have before.”
He started to deny it, to tell her that he’d always wanted to take care of her, but it would be a lie and they would both know it. One of the things that had originally attracted him to Amanda was how self-sufficient she was. How she could take care of herself and whatever came along. How she had never needed a man—never needed him—to lean on.
Diabolically, that same self-sufficiency was what had caused their relationship to end—just when he’d wanted most for it to continue. But then, he’d always had a gift for impossible relationships.
They stood there for long seconds, staring at each other as he tried to figure out what he was supposed to say. In the end, he did what he usually did—told the truth, even if it was guaranteed to get him into trouble. “Because for the first time since I met you, you need me.”
SIMON’S WORDS, DELIVERED IN the crisp British accent that had once sent shivers down her spine, worked their way through Amanda and she had to fight not to show her incredulity. There was so much wrong with what he’d said that she wasn’t sure which part to take exception to first—his assumption that she’d never needed him, or his idea that she suddenly did?
Could he really believe what he was saying? she wondered incredulously. Could he really think that in all the time they’d been together she’d never needed him before? That she’d done everything alone because she’d liked it that way?
She’d managed by herself because she’d never been able to count on him to do anything for her. For that, he would have had to be around for more than a few days at a time. He would have had to show an interest in something besides sex and that damn camera of his.
Part of her wanted to say something, to throw his words back in his face. But doing that would mean admitting that he’d had the power to hurt her, and she couldn’t see letting herself in for that. Not now, when simply standing here looking at him was taking more strength than she had. Besides, what they’d had—whatever it was— had been over long before Gabby had gotten sick. Her funeral had been the final death knell for a relationship that never should have happened.
“Simon—” She cleared her throat. Tried again. “I don’t need you to feel guilty about me. I’ll go home and get some rest. I’ll be fine in a few weeks.”
But even as she said the words, she knew he wouldn’t believe them. After eighteen years as a journalist, Simon’s bullshit meter was finely tuned.
Sure enough, one of his eyebrows shot up the way it always did when he was about to call her on a fib. “Really? You think rattling around in that house by yourself is what you need right now?”
“I don’t have the house anymore. It sold a few months after…” She cleared her throat again. “After.”
His eyes darkened until they were the color of the storm-tossed Atlantic. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”
Sometimes so did she. The house held so many memories of Gabby, good and bad. That was why she had sold it to begin with—she hadn’t been able to contemplate the idea of ever crossing the threshold, knowing that it was where her child had died.
But now, a year and a half later, she would give anything to walk through the halls and remember what it had felt like when her daughter had been alive. Even the pain that came with the memories would be better than this yawning emptiness that threatened to swallow her whole.
“Yeah, well, it seemed stupid to hold on to it, when I would only be in town every once in a blue moon.”
“Stupid?” he demanded. “That was your home. Our home.”
Anger sparked. “Just because I let you stay there when you passed through town didn’t make it your home, Simon. To be that, you need some kind of emotional investment in the place.”
“I had an emotional investment, Amanda. Not in the house, but in you. In Gabby.”
His words hit like blows and she trembled under the onslaught. But she caught herself, fought back. “The only thing you’ve ever been emotionally invested in is the story. You, of all people, should know that trying to rewrite history doesn’t work—not if there’s someone still around who remembers how things actually happened.”
He clenched his teeth so tightly that she worried he would crack a molar—or five. She waited for him to swallow the bait, to explode and walk away, as was his modus operandi. But sometime in the past year and a half, he must have learned self-control, because he didn’t defend himself. Didn’t say anything at all.
Instead, he looked out across the sand, his eyes focusing on some distant point, while his jaw worked furiously. Long seconds passed in hostile silence until, in a voice that sounded a lot more reasonable than he looked, he said, “Since you sold the house, where are you planning to stay?”
“Why?”
“Why do you think? I want to pull in a few favors, have your place firebombed.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” she said, remembering one of the reports Simon had done about Chechnya when she’d been there—a report that had ended with her clinic being attacked by the government. She’d barely gotten Gabby out in time, which was one of the main reasons she’d decided to end the romantic part of their relationship once and for all.
“That wasn’t my fault,” he answered with an amused resignation that hadn’t been there a few moments before.
“It never is.” She grinned at him for a second, before remembering that he was the enemy. No, she corrected herself firmly. Simon wasn’t the enemy. She refused to give him that much importance in her life.
He scooted closer, cupped her face in his palms. She forced herself not to flinch this time, when all she really wanted to do was flee. “I didn’t have any nefarious intentions in asking, Amanda. I just wanted to know where we were going to settle.”
His thumb stroked gently across her cheek, and despite everything—despite her anger at him, despite her resentment and her despair—she found herself melting into his touch. Simon felt safe, even though she knew he was anything but. And she was so tired that it didn’t matter.
Tired of fighting.
Tired of talking.
Tired of living.
But then he moved, shifting a little closer until his body brushed hers. It was all she needed to shove him away, once and for all.
“Jack might have contacted you a few days ago, but I just got my walking papers today. I haven’t exactly had time to decide where I want to end up.”
“Come with me,” he urged. “We can decide together.”
She shook her head, backed away some more—not even caring that it looked as if she was in full retreat. “I’m not getting on that plane with you.”